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Ant Group's three independent sectors, Ant International, OceanBase, and Ant Technology, have recently launched intensive external financing. Among them, Ant International completed approximately $1.2 billion in Series A financing in July, OceanBase is seeking about 2 to 3 billion yuan in Series A financing, and Ant Technology is preparing for Pre-IPO financing. All three companies will operate independently starting in March 2024. Sources close to Ant indicate that this round of financing is more of a phased test of the effectiveness of the three companies' independent operations, and they have not yet entered the preparation stage for an IPO.OceanBase's annual revenue has exceeded 1.4 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of about 70%; Ant Technology's revenue is expected to be around 5 billion yuan in 2025, with a target of about 8 billion yuan in 2026. Ant International's revenue is projected to be around $3.75 billion in 2025. Since 2023, Ant Group has invested nearly 80 billion yuan in technology, shifting its strategic focus from fintech to AI and data elements, with its financial business humorously referred to internally as the department that "earns living expenses" for the AI business.Currently, Ant's overall valuation is approximately 592 billion yuan, a reduction of more than 70% from 2.1 trillion yuan on the eve of its IPO in 2020. The market believes that a spin-off listing is a more realistic path than an overall listing for the group, but each sector still needs to prove its independent customer acquisition capabilities to open the doors to the capital market.

Brian Armstrong posted on the X platform expressing appreciation for Paul S. Atkins and the SEC for their progress on token classification, calling it a long-awaited step towards modernizing the financial system. He stated that he has been advocating for clear cryptocurrency rules for years, and token classification is a necessary measure for the U.S. to maintain innovation.Brian Armstrong also expressed anticipation for the SEC to release the Innovation Exemption to promote on-chain trading of tokenized stocks. He mentioned that relevant progress is being made and that the CLARITY Act should be pushed through as soon as possible, moving the market on-chain before leading the way in other regions.

According to the SemiAnalysis podcast, Anthropic has set extremely strict classifiers for the public version of its flagship model Mythos, called Fable, due to regulatory pressure. Users attempting specific actions will be immediately downgraded to the Opus model, and conversations cannot be reverted. Dylan Patel, founder of SemiAnalysis, stated that the classifier restrictions are "too harsh," and even internal employees cannot complete routine tasks with it.The podcast mentioned that the Mythos model completed training as early as February, but Anthropic did not release it under the name Fable until May. Jordan stated in the discussion that, to his knowledge, Mythos 2 has completed training but has not been released, and the internal R&D team is believed to still be iterating. Analysts believe that Anthropic's previous long-standing calls for regulation have now resulted in regulatory measures that limit the release pace of its own models. Similarly, OpenAI is also delaying the public release of its next-generation models, but internal training is still progressing, and the capability gap between internal models and public models may continue to widen.

On July 23, the European Union passed the 21st round of sanctions against Russia, expanding the trading ban to 14 cryptocurrency service platforms located in Georgia, Panama, the UAE, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus, and adding 4 new sanctions measures targeting the A7 Russian ruble network. The new regulations will take effect on August 25, prohibiting Russian and Belarusian citizens from holding, controlling, or serving in positions within MiCA cryptocurrency asset service providers in the EU, with the scope extending to services such as consulting, portfolio management, and transferring cryptocurrency assets on behalf of clients.The new regulations also allow the EU to impose a comprehensive ban on cryptocurrency transactions against third countries that have not prevented relevant sanction evasion activities. The list of relevant countries is currently empty and only includes third countries identified by the EU Council as having continuously and systematically failed to prevent the provision of cryptocurrency asset services or the operation of related platforms.

According to bits.media, Maria Patrikeeva, Managing Director of the Derivatives Market at the Moscow Exchange, stated that the exchange plans to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum perpetual futures contracts for professional investors and aims to expand the tradable cryptocurrencies to ten.Perpetual futures are daily rollover contracts with no fixed expiration date, providing flexibility in position management. The exchange will launch crypto derivatives in the summer of 2025, and currently, professional investors can trade quarterly and monthly futures for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Ripple, and Tron.

According to Bitcoin.com, the Central Bank of Russia has released a draft regulation requiring professional market participants such as brokers, trust institutions, forex traders, and cryptocurrency exchanges to include cryptocurrency holdings when calculating their own capital, and the proportion of cryptocurrency assets must not exceed 25% of total capital. Holdings must be registered with a cryptocurrency custodian for national verification of their authenticity.The Central Bank of Russia stated that this measure aims to assess credit and market risks, ensuring the financial resilience of intermediaries in cryptocurrency transactions. This draft is a continuation of the process of legalizing cryptocurrency assets in Russia, providing investors with a reference to assess the financial status of licensed institutions. Previously, the State Duma approved comprehensive cryptocurrency regulatory legislation, allowing both qualified and unqualified investors to trade cryptocurrency assets, but the latter has an annual purchase limit of 300,000 rubles (approximately $3,800). The use of cryptocurrency as a means of payment is still prohibited domestically, while importers and exporters can use it without restrictions in cross-border settlements.

The Central Bank of Russia has released a regulatory draft proposing to include digital currencies in the asset scope for calculating capital adequacy ratios and other prudential regulatory indicators for professional participants in the financial market, applicable to institutions such as brokers, asset management companies, forex traders, and cryptocurrency exchanges.The draft stipulates that relevant institutions may only include cryptocurrencies approved for circulation on exchanges when calculating their own funds, with their value not exceeding 25% of the total assets included in the calculation, and they must be registered and held by a crypto custody institution. The Central Bank of Russia stated that this move aims to incorporate the risks of crypto assets into capital regulation and enhance the financial stability of financial intermediaries.

According to Cointelegraph, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance provided customer trading records and identity information to Russian authorities, which were subsequently used in a terrorism financing case against IT specialist Yuri Belenkiy.Yuri Belenkiy was detained in September 2025 and is currently awaiting trial in Russia. The Russian Investigative Committee accuses Yuri Belenkiy of donating over $700 in cryptocurrency to the Ukrainian military and banned organizations between January 2023 and March 2024.The information obtained by Russian authorities includes his transaction history, date of birth, address, phone number, Russian passport, and Bulgarian residence permit. Binance announced its complete withdrawal from Russia in September 2023 and sold its local business to CommEX.Binance stated that the company is not responsible for making or enforcing the laws of any jurisdiction, nor does it determine the content of charges or how governments use information in legal proceedings; the company will cooperate with legitimate information requests from global law enforcement agencies in accordance with applicable laws, privacy, and regulatory requirements.

Binance founder Zhao Changpeng stated at Binance Square: Too many people are trying to overinterpret "What does this mean?" Today, I tested Trust Wallet and found too many Meme tokens in the wallet, so many that it was hard to even find BNB, so I tried to burn some tokens. As a result, even this action sparked quite a bit of community discussion. I realized that I could never "clean up" the meme coins on this address. The more I burn, the more people will send coins to this address. The transparent nature of blockchain means that any action on this address will be overinterpreted by the community.I even considered asking the Trust Wallet team to create an "Ignore Coin" feature to avoid cluttering the interface, but 99.99% of people wouldn't use this feature at all. So the plan is as follows: I will donate BNB and the "Binance Life" tokens purchased with BNB to Giggle Academy. After that, I will stop using this address and turn it into a burn address.

Galaxy Research analyst Alex Thorn pointed out that as the likelihood of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 significantly decreases, the U.S. SEC and CFTC are intensifying independent cryptocurrency regulatory actions. The bill previously gained bipartisan support in the Senate Banking Committee but has stalled due to unresolved ethical rules for officials regarding cryptocurrency, pressure from community banks leading to some Republican positions softening, and disputes over developer protection clauses. The Senate Majority Leader failed to push for a vote before the August recess, and the September session is only about two to three weeks long, leading Galaxy to lower the probability to 10%.On the SEC side, the originally planned "Reg Crypto" exemption (which provides a new path for primary issuance of crypto assets) and "Innovation Exemption" (which allows tokenized securities to trade in DeFi secondary markets) have been postponed multiple times. It is reported that the agency had retreated due to opposition from the traditional securities industry, but may restart due to the bleak outlook of the bill, with text expected to be released in the coming weeks to months. These measures are likely to be time-limited sandboxes that will face litigation and require years to refine. The CFTC is actively advocating for jurisdiction over prediction market contracts, responding to the New York Attorney General's attempt to issue an emergency order to ban Kalshi event contracts nationwide, continuing the tug-of-war over federal and state jurisdiction regarding prediction markets.Thorn believes that while the bill covers a comprehensive framework including registration licensing, compliance monitoring, and consumer protection, it is currently more dominated by political factors. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce's planned departure in November also adds urgency to the advancement of the rules. The related actions aim to fill the legislative vacuum but may ultimately undergo a lengthy judicial and rule-making process.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has published multiple websites impersonating the licensed virtual asset trading platform Hash Blockchain Limited on its official website. It is reported that the relevant websites have been reported by Hash Blockchain Limited as fraudulent sites. At the same time, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission clarified that the relevant websites have no connection with the virtual asset trading platforms licensed by the Commission.

Broadcom fell nearly 7% during Friday's trading, as the market expressed concerns about the financing model behind its AI infrastructure expansion. Bank of America analysts estimate that the financing platform built by Broadcom for AI chip customers could accumulate up to $370 billion in preferred debt by mid-2029. Broadcom has provided guarantees for lease payments for some customers, with the first transaction guarantee amounting to approximately $29 billion.

According to Bitcoin News, Boltzhq has shut down due to its five-person team being overwhelmed by increasingly complex AI-assisted attacks. A group of experienced Bitcoin users will take over the service with additional capital and engineering resources.The founder has stepped down. The service is currently still offline, and the new team is working to restart it.

AI Economic Settlement Agreement AEON announced the latest data showing that its transaction volume in July exceeded 39 million USD, with a cumulative processing amount surpassing 514 million USD, and the user base has exceeded 2.3 million;Among them, QR payments and cryptocurrency payments settled through AEON saw month-on-month growth of 83.5% and 55%, respectively. As the AI economy accelerates, the demand for instant, borderless payment infrastructure by AI Agents continues to rise. AEON's QR code and cryptocurrency payment network will become an important infrastructure for machine-to-machine payments and AI payment scenarios.AEON is improving payment infrastructure around scenarios such as collaboration between Agents and autonomous consumption by Agents, facilitating the flow of funds between AI and offline commerce.

Investment firm Neoclassic Capital announced on X that it will co-lead the seed round financing for the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) data platform RWA.xyz. RWA.xyz has not yet disclosed further details about this round of financing.RWA.xyz is building an industry-standard data platform and real data source for tokenized real-world assets. According to RootData, previous investors in RWA.xyz also include Nascent, Archetype, The Venture Dept., and others.

According to Gate market data, the Hang Seng Tech Index fell more than 1% at the beginning of the session, with tech stocks collectively weakening. JD.com (09618.HK) fell more than 8%, and Meituan (03690.HK) fell more than 3%.

Documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show that as of June 30, Musk held 48.4% of SpaceX's passive shares.

The Supreme Joint Military Command of Iran stated that any vessel passing through the Strait of Hormuz must obtain permission from Iran.

The Bitcoin Treasury Company Strategy officially announced that it will hold a live investor Q&A on August 17 at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. The company's founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor and CEO Phong Le will be present.It is reported that this investor Q&A is expected to focus on market topics of interest, including the company's Bitcoin strategy, capital operations, financing plans, and future business directions.

In July, the US CPI rose by 0.1% month-on-month and 3.4% year-on-year, while the core CPI increased by 2.5% year-on-year, overall in line with market expectations. As the market continues to assess the Federal Reserve's subsequent policy path, the impact of macro changes on asset allocation and trading strategies is continuously strengthening, further enhancing institutions' focus on liquidity management and trading execution efficiency.Against this backdrop, Gate institutions are continuously improving professional trading infrastructure. According to the transparency report released by the platform in July, Gate CrossEx added one mainstream exchange and 23 trading pairs, launched RPI Orders, reduced the highest fees of multiple exchanges by 50%, and introduced new APIs for market data, funding rates, batch order cancellations, and several WebSocket features; by optimizing concurrent order placement and execution feedback delays, system performance improved by 50%, while the launch of Colo services further reduced trading latency.In addition, SuperLink continues to optimize Fireblocks Gas management and settlement processes, further enhancing institutions' cross-platform asset management and trading collaboration capabilities. In the future, Gate institutions will continue to advance infrastructure upgrades around core capabilities such as trading execution, liquidity, and cross-platform collaboration, providing professional investors with more efficient and stable institutional-level trading services.